By now, it’s a well-established fact that social media is one of the best ways to raise awareness about your brand and build a loyal audience. What isn’t as clear is just how you should go about crafting your social media posts.

Here, I’ll give you the rundown on which social networks you can explore, how to write your updates and which words you should use.

Take Your Pick

Sure, Facebook and Twitter are obvious (and safe) choices when you’re trying to choose which platform to post your updates on. However, it’s worth digging a little deeper to discover which platforms you might be missing out on.

A 2016 report by TrackMaven examined social media metrics for companies across a wide array of industries. Interestingly, audience size and engagement don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

When it comes to audience size, most companies have the largest audience on LinkedIn.

On the other hand, the majority of companies see the highest level of engagement on Instagram, regardless of industry (there are two exceptions: the financial industry sees the most engagement on Pinterest, while the biotech industry sees the most engagement on Facebook).

So, while Facebook might be the largest social media network in the world, it won’t necessarily give you the most results. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to neglect your company’s Facebook page—but you don’t want to give other social media platforms the cold shoulder, either.

Keep It Simple

I follow quite a few brands on social media, so I can confirm that convoluted and bloated captions can be a major turn-off.

Sure, I want to get a sense of what’s new, perhaps with the addition of a few emojis to spice things up, but I don’t want to spend two minutes reading an update that’s struggling to find its own purpose.

To ensure that your posts are descriptive rather than long-winded, try to focus on simplicity rather than length. After all, length isn’t really the problem—some types of posts, such as those related to contests, giveaways, major news announcements and the like can’t help but be at least a few paragraphs long. What does matter is clarity.

I’d recommend writing at least one rough draft before you click “publish,” even if you just do some minor editing after letting it sit for ten minutes. While editing your post, keep an eye out for unnecessary words or confusing phrases.

Or, to truly guarantee that your posts are easily readable, have one or two other people take a look at them beforehand. What seems like a witty joke to you might be utterly meaningless to everyone else—you’ll never know until you ask.

Mind Your Words

It’s safe to say that every content writer out there, myself included, is a firm believer in the power of word choice. As Sophocles wrote, “To speak much is one thing; to speak to the point in another.”

We don’t need to rely solely on the words of ancients to know this—recent statistics have proven it to be true.

After analyzing hundreds of thousands of tweets, Dan Zarrella found that certain words generate more clicks than others. For example, tweets with more adverbs and verbs received much higher clicks than those with more nouns and adjectives.

The same principle can be applied to almost any social media site—Zarrella found similar results in his research on Instagram engagement.

How do you approach your social media posts? Have you noticed a difference and engagement from platform to platform, or from word to word? Let me know!